Alice Childress Quotes

• Life is just a short walk from the cradle to the grave - and it sure behooves us to be kind to one another along the way.

  Alice Childress

  Kindness, Life Is Short, Way

  57 Copy quote

• writing is a labor of love and also an act of defiance, a way to light a candle in a gale wind.

  Alice Childress

  Writing, Light, Wind

  26 Copy quote

• I believe racism has killed more people than speed, heroin, or cancer, and will continue to kill until it is no more.

  Alice Childress

  Cancer, Believe, Racism

  35 Copy quote

• Like snowflakes, the human pattern is never cast twice. We are uncommonly and marvelously intricate in thought and action, our problems are most complex and, too often, silently borne.

  Alice Childress

  Unique, African American, Patterns

  36 Copy quote

• The Black writer explains pain to those who inflict it.

  Alice Childress

  Pain, Black

  19 Copy quote

• Truth is simply whatever you can bring yourself to believe.

  Alice Childress

  Inspirational, Believe, Truth Is

  Alice Childress, Kathy A. Perkins (2011). “Selected Plays”, p.97, Northwestern University Press

  17 Copy quote

• We think of poverty as a condition simply meaning a lack of funds, no money, but when one sees fifth, sixth, and seventh generation poor, it is clear that poverty is as complicated as high finance.

  Alice Childress

  Thinking, Poverty, Generations

  Alice Childress (2000). “A Hero Ain't Nothin But a Sandwich”, p.37, Penguin

  22 Copy quote

• I think women need kindness more than love. When one human being is kind to another, it's a very deep matter.

  Alice Childress

  Kindness, Thinking, Needs

  17 Copy quote

• "The good old days." The only good days are ahead.

  Alice Childress

  Inspirational, Good Day, Old Days

  13 Copy quote

• Like snowflakes, the human pattern is never cast twice.

  Alice Childress

  Educational, Patterns, Snowflake

  11 Copy quote

• Some truth has no nourishment in it.

  Alice Childress

  Nourishment

  17 Copy quote

• Who wants to live with one foot in hell just for the sake of nostalgia Our time is forever now.

  Alice Childress

  Feet, Forever, Sake

  61 Copy quote

• Some feminists feel that a woman should never be wrong. We have a right to be wrong.

  Alice Childress

  Feminist, Should, Feels

  18 Copy quote

• It's a poor kind of man that won't fight for his own freedom.

  Alice Childress

  Fighting, Men, Kind

  Alice Childress (2012). “Like One of the Family: Conversations from a Domestic's Life”, p.73, Beacon Press

  10 Copy quote

• Zis and zat' when uttered by the French is considered charming, but 'dis and dat' as an Africanism is ridiculed as gross and ugly.

  Alice Childress

  Prejudice, Ugly, Language

  14 Copy quote

• The twisted circumstances under which we live is grist for the writing mill, the loving, hating and discovering, finding new handles for old pitchers . . .

  Alice Childress

  Hate, Writing, Twisted

  10 Copy quote

• Thoughts can hurt like real pain.

  Alice Childress

  Hurt, Pain, Real

  Alice Childress (2000). “A Hero Ain't Nothin But a Sandwich”, p.19, Penguin

  11 Copy quote

• your soul is an inner something that is another you and hardly anybody knows what it's really thinkin' except you.

  Alice Childress

  Soul, Knows, Your Soul

  Alice Childress (2012). “Like One of the Family: Conversations from a Domestic's Life”, p.77, Beacon Press

  10 Copy quote

• A gift - be it a present, a kind word or a job done with care and love - explains itself!... and if receivin' it embarrasses you, it's because your 'thanks box' is warped.

  Alice Childress

  Jobs, And Love, Done

  Alice Childress (2012). “Like One of the Family: Conversations from a Domestic's Life”, p.78, Beacon Press

  10 Copy quote

• Everybody's got some sin, but if it troubles your heart you're a gentle sinner, just a good soul gone wrong.

  Alice Childress

  Heart, Soul, Gone

  Alice Childress, Kathy A. Perkins (2011). “Selected Plays”, p.125, Northwestern University Press

  11 Copy quote

• Writers are encouraged to "keep 'em laughing" and complain "with good humor" in order to "win" allies. The joke is always on ourselves.

  Alice Childress

  Winning, Order, Laughing

  7 Copy quote

• And realizing there is no such thing as the Black experience. Time and events allow for change on both sides.

  Alice Childress

  Black, Events, Sides

  9 Copy quote

• That's how women are, always studyin' each other and wonderin' how they look up 'gainst the next.

  Alice Childress

  Looks, Next, Look Up

  Alice Childress, Kathy A. Perkins (2011). “Selected Plays”, p.204, Northwestern University Press

  9 Copy quote

• It becomes almost second nature to be on guard against the creative pattern of our own thought.

  Alice Childress

  Creative, Patterns

  7 Copy quote

• I'm independent as a hog on ice and a hog on ice is dead, cold, well-preserved and don't need a mother'grabbin, thing.

  Alice Childress

  Mother, Independent, Ice

  Alice Childress, Kathy A. Perkins (2011). “Selected Plays”, p.194, Northwestern University Press

  4 Copy quote

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